Titanic disaster showed need for better iceberg tracking

A century after the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic tragically intersected with an iceberg about 600 kilometres southeast of Newfoundland, researchers with the Canadian Ice Service and allied agencies in Canada and the U.S. are still trying to devise fool-proof ways to detect and track hundreds of huge, ship-threatening bergs that breakaway each year from west Greenland glaciers and the Canadian Arctic before floating south down the North Atlantic's fabled "iceberg alley".

Photograph by: Handout
, Canadian Ice Service

A century after the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic tragically intersected with an iceberg, researchers are still trying to devise foolproof ways to detect and track hundreds of huge, ship-threatening bergs that break away each year from west Greenland glaciers and the Canadian Arctic — to the delight of tourists and the dread of offshore oil firms, ships' captains and maritime authorities.

In fact, the international effort to protect transatlantic marine traffic from the icy menace that routinely skirts Newfoundland and Labrador's coasts en route to the open ocean began with the loss of the Titanic itself.

The sinking prompted the signing of the 1914 Safety of Life at Sea convention — a measure of "SOLAS" in the wake of the April 1912 disaster — and the creation of the International Ice Patrol.

The Titanic catastrophe "gripped the world with a chilling awareness of an iceberg's potential for tragedy," states the International Ice Patrol, based at the U.S. naval and coast guard hub in New London, Conn., in its official history. "The sheer dimensions of the Titanic disaster created sufficient public reaction on both sides of the Atlantic to prod reluctant governments into action."

Today, the Ottawa-based Canadian Ice Service — an arm of Environment Canada — works closely with U.S. officials under the auspices of the International Ice Patrol in patrolling the Grand Banks and surrounding areas for iceberg threats.

"We are trying to follow icebergs by satellite, which is much more economical than by plane, but it is not an exact science," Canadian Ice Service senior ice forecaster Lionel Hache told Postmedia News. "It is very difficult to identify an iceberg within an ice field, and it isn't easy to differentiate between a ship and an iceberg. But we are in the process of developing better ways to track them."

The challenge, he says, is to keep fine-tuning iceberg imaging technology to balance the demand for extensive monitoring of East Coast waters — from Baffin Island to Newfoundland and beyond — with the need for high-resolution tracking of individual bergs that could pose a hazard to ships or oil platforms.

Every day, Canadian and U.S. forecasters produce an updated chart showing the approximate location of all known icebergs being carried south by the Labrador Current — a cold, fast-moving stream of sea water that acts like a conveyor belt delivering bergs from the Arctic to the open Atlantic.

The monitoring system, which depicts the waters around Newfoundland in a grid pattern with a bold line delimiting the presence of icebergs, benefits from satellite imagery, direct observation via aircraft overflights and drift calculations developed by CIS and National Research Council scientists.

The frozen mass that struck the Titanic 100 years ago is believed to have begun its journey — like most icebergs coasting near Newfoundland — as a colossal chunk of ice that broke free of the Jakobshavn Glacier, which regularly calves great sections of its leading edge near the picturesque town of Ilulissat (Greenlandic for "icebergs") on Greenland's west coast.

According to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, a Colorado-based institute that monitors the state of Arctic Ocean ice, the Jakobshavn Glacier "is responsible for the majority of icebergs reaching Atlantic shipping and fishing areas off of Newfoundland, and most likely shed the iceberg responsible for the sinking of the Titanic in 1912."

Hache said icebergs that don't get grounded near Baffin Island or elsewhere along their southward journey often veer east after reaching Newfoundland, following the path that carried Titanic's nemesis to its fateful encounter.

"We still talk about it," notes the veteran forecaster, acknowledging that even the scientists tasked with preventing a repeat of the Titanic tragedy are captivated by the "very good story" that reaches its climax with the collision of ice and steel on April 14, 1912.

The record-setting retreat of Arctic sea ice in recent years is not likely to lessen the threat posed by icebergs in the foreseeable future, said Hache. Scientists believe the warming polar frontier has led to the collapse of ancient ice shelves, the accelerated calving of glaciers and the discharge of more and larger icebergs.

This includes massive "ice islands," such as the 250-square-kilometre Petermann Ice Island that broke free of its Greenland glacier two years ago.

First detected by Canadian Ice Service forecaster Trudy Wohlleben in August 2010, the Petermann monolith — described at the time by a U.S. expert as four times the size of Manhattan and "half the height of the Empire State Building" — triggered warnings to ships and offshore oil installations, but has since broken into large pieces that are still being tracked by CIS monitors via satellite and beacons dropped from planes.

Arctic warming means so-called "ice plugs" — choke points that block the southward movement of large ice floes — could soon open, releasing more of the older, thicker, "multi-year" ice traditionally contained in the central Arctic Ocean. For example, scientists are predicting greater ice movement in the coming years down a narrow passage between Ellesmere Island and northwest Greenland.

"If those ice plugs melt, the thicker ice from the Arctic Ocean could go farther south than it was going before," said Hache, noting the irony that retreating Arctic sea ice could lead to greater hazards for the increasing number of ships now plying northern waters.

"Less ice," he said, "doesn't mean it is not dangerous to go there."

Hache also pointed out that the iceberg struck by the Titanic was probably of average size — not the monstrosity that might be imagined from the epic story that has come to surround the event.

"A large one (might have been) much easier to see. And an iceberg is an iceberg; you don't want to hit even a small iceberg."

Though Hache and his fellow scientists maintain a cool detachment when it comes to tracking the icebergs that float into North Atlantic shipping lanes, officials with the Canadian Ice Service and the International Ice Patrol are marking the 100th anniversary of the Titanic tragedy with a poignant display next week at the site of the sinking. There, a wreath will be dropped and rose petals sprinkled to commemorate the deaths of more than 1,500 passengers.

They will also mark, in a way, the belated birth of serious iceberg surveillance in the North Atlantic.

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A century after the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic tragically intersected with an iceberg about 600 kilometres southeast of Newfoundland, researchers with the Canadian Ice Service and allied agencies in Canada and the U.S. are still trying to devise fool-proof ways to detect and track hundreds of huge, ship-threatening bergs that breakaway each year from west Greenland glaciers and the Canadian Arctic before floating south down the North Atlantic's fabled "iceberg alley".

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